Giving Ventures Podcast: Episode 103 – Hall of Fame for American Entrepreneurs

This transcript has been AI-generated and lightly edited for clarity. Some inaccuracies may remain.

Peter Lipsett: We’re doing this hall of fame for entrepreneurs. That’s all well and good. This has got to exist somewhere, at least in small part, right? The Smithsonian, like there has to be somewhere celebrating the great business leaders, entrepreneurs, and inventors, et cetera, right?

John Tillman: No, actually not. There are elements of this in a variety of places. The most recent one is the Milken Center for Celebrating the American Dream in Washington, DC, which opened up across from the Treasury Building fairly recently, 70,000 square feet, four pillars, education, health and wellness, entrepreneurship and innovation. And of course, I’m pulling a Rick Perry and can’t remember the fourth one, but they don’t focus on it the way that we focus on it. And I’ll draw a distinction. But there are others. There’s Business Hall of Fame, College Business Hall of Fame, Ernst & Young has an Entrepreneur of the Year Award. But there is no civic institution, cultural institution celebrating entrepreneurs and all that they do to solve our great problems in our society and all the beneficial downstream effects of entrepreneurs. I always like to point out that literally every physical thing in your world right now where you’re sitting and mine and everybody that’s watching, literally every physical thing except your body exists because at some point an entrepreneur started a business to do a singular thing, which is serve other people well. In our great free enterprise system with our founding principles, people are rewarded when they serve others well in our economic system and entrepreneurs are the drivers of that. And if you don’t serve people well in your business life, you’re punished very quickly and you’re held accountable. And that’s why our system has worked so well, better than anybody else’s in the entire world. And I just find it stunning that there is not a hall of fame celebrating American entrepreneurs. I originally had this idea in 2012 and then went on with life and kind of waited. I thought someone’s going to do it. I mean, it so obviously needs to be done because free enterprise and entrepreneurship are under assault. You know, everybody loves the entrepreneur Peter when they’re mortgaged to the hilt, wondering if they’re going to make their next payroll. But God forbid you make it to the penthouse and have a private jet. Then you’re an enemy to people, not paying your fair share, exploiting the poor, none of which is true. And so we need to fight back against these narratives that are going on that are anti-American, anti-free enterprise, and anti-human flourishing and achievement.

Peter Lipsett: You’ve always been a big thinker. It’s one of the things I admire about you. You challenge the status quo and push big. This is next level even for you. You may have had the original idea back in 2012, but clearly something has changed in the last few years. How did you get inspired to like really take this on?

John Tillman: I never thought that I would live in a time where you have such an almost delusional part of our electorate who is embracing socialism. We have a socialist that almost won a Democratic nomination in both 2016 and 2020 in Bernie Sanders. We have a socialist mayor of the city of New York, the iconic absolute center of American enterprise for 200 plus years. And they’re gaining traction and they’re gaining traction by misleading the American public and hiding the evils of socialism. Socialism is based on coercion and submission, whereas free enterprise and those entrepreneurs operating within that system, it’s based on persuasion and consent. And yet they’re winning hearts and minds because people think socialism solves our great problems better when it’s actually the private sector, civic engagement that actually solve our great problems. And too often the government’s in the way of that. Sometimes the government’s playing a proper role. I’m certainly not anti-government. I’m very pro-government within the constitutional framework. But I want to see the entrepreneurs unleashed to solve our great problems. And I want to build an institution that fights the narrative from the socialists that are emerging and really makes the moral argument that free enterprise, the founding principles and the entrepreneurs who drive those systems are the righteous moral choice to improve the human condition and help with human flourishing, particularly for the poor and disadvantaged.

Peter Lipsett: So how do we do it? So what is entailed in this Hall of Giants project?

John Tillman: Well, we’re debuting, as you noted, on the National Mall this summer with our traveling exhibit. Its first stop will be the National Mall as part of the Great American State Fair, Freedom 250 celebration, which we’re very excited about and feel very lucky to have been selected to be a participant. So that is the first step in a very long and challenging process. But time flies when you’re trying to raise $350 million. The good news for everybody watching today is our initial number is $7.5 million to build this traveling exhibit that will become part of the National Mall. And then once that season is over and our celebration of the 250th is done, it will begin to travel around the country. It’ll end up, I’m sure, at the Henry Ford in Dearborn, Michigan. We’ll end up in Colorado and Missouri and elsewhere, and we’ll go all over the country. And as the kids like to say, maybe you’re one of those kids, Peter, we’re going to socialize the idea of the Hall of Giants as part of this traveling exhibit and really start to expose the whole country to the concept of celebrating American entrepreneurs and that we’re going to build a $350 million permanent facility at a site yet to be determined. But the process you do when you’re, you know, I’ve never built one of these before, but I’m, I would say I’m getting on the edge of becoming an expert at it because we’ve done a lot of learning over the last two years. We’ve studied a lot of museums and we’ve also studied amusement parks. This is going to be unlike any experience, museum-like experience anyone’s ever had because what we’re building is unique and different. It’s a hybrid between a museum and a hall of fame and an amusement park. I really looked at the numbers of attendance, the kind of attendance numbers you get at really iconic places like the Smithsonian and all that that is. That’s the most attended museum in the country. But places like the Griffin Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, same thing in Boston, all the great museums in New York. And the attendance is interesting. Anywhere from a million people to three, four, five million people, I think the Smithsonian tops out at 15 million with its multiple facility footprint. But also when you look at amusement parks that entertain, and their primary goal is to entertain, they get far greater attendance. And so what we’re blending is the education with the entertainment that both are compelling. So in our permanent facility, you’re going to walk into virtual reality experiences and rides. You’ll get on a buckboard wagon in 1776, and you’ll travel through time, decade by decade through the 1800s, and you’ll go from that buckboard wagon to a stagecoach to a steamship to a locomotive to an automobile to a jet airplane and then you’ll end up on a rocket ship and landing on Mars. And all along the way we’re going to tell the stories of the entrepreneurs who shrunk time and space and improved the quality of our life. And that theme will be part of what we do throughout the experience. We’ll do that with the home, how the home has changed from the founding of the country to the present and we’ll look into the near future. We’ll do that with agriculture, manufacturing, science and technology, health and wellness, and really connect the dots for our visitors as to how the entrepreneur is the absolute root source and their business is the root source of these amazing innovations that improve the quality of our life. And those stories are not being told. And average people in America have lost sight of it. They don’t really understand, much as we sort of have this general idea that we’re a capitalist enterprise system, those ideas, first of all, are under assault. And we have to rebuild the idea that those are noble systems, that entrepreneurs are noble, and that the founding of this country is noble. And we’re going to do it through an entertaining, absolutely gripping, compelling experience and make it fun while people learn and become educated and persuaded about the nobility of our country and these systems.

Peter Lipsett: I mean, are there like roller coasters? Or are these just like, like going inside the body ride at Disney or?

John Tillman: There will be a roller coaster and there will be more. And so we’ve hired a company called RWS Global that has designed our traveling exhibit that I talked about earlier. And that is our current urgent need for those who are interested. As you know, raising money is always an interesting thing. We’re building something that is completely different, completely unique outside of the normal public policy arena. We want to entertain people while they learn about the great…

Peter Lipsett: All right.

John Tillman: Principles and policies of the American founding and the American present. And we have a seven and a half million dollar budget for that. We’ve raised about 1.5 million so far. We have to raise about another six million in the next 30 to 45 days to actually be able to pull this off and get that thing built on the National Mall. So for those of you who have that money sitting around, those family foundations and otherwise, now’s a good time to think about doing something that is completely radical, different, innovative and exciting.

Peter Lipsett: Talk to us a little bit more about the thing on the mall because it is a fascinating first step and something that’s not a one-off, right? As you say, you can use that to hit, to do a trailer and be little traveling carnies of free market enterprise going around the country. So what is the national fair? What is this fair that’s going on that it’s a part of? And what do you hope people walk away from the experience thinking?

John Tillman: So the Great American State Fair is the way that President Trump and his administration are going to bring to life the celebration of America’s 250th birthday. There’s been a lot of controversy because he inherited the 250 Commission structure, which is a bipartisan structure. And to be frank about it, they were pretty hostile to the president. So he has set up within the Department of Interior a nonprofit 501(c)(3) called Freedom 250. And that is now the organizing body. It’ll be on the National Mall between the Washington Monument and the Capitol, most of your viewers are going to be familiar with that. And if you think about an aerial shot of that during inaugurations and such, you have those very broad gravel pathways and then the grassy area. So all along those gravel pathways will be pavilions that the Department of Interior and the contractors are building somewhat modeled on Monticello in terms of look and feel. And then all the people building exhibits, all 50 states will have an exhibit along there. The Washington Monument itself will be turned into a birthday candle with all kinds of fun things going on around that circle that’s there. And then we will have a pavilion, 7,200 square feet, big long rectangle because it has to fit in that gravel area. And then we’ll have a series of exhibits within that. The journey of being an entrepreneur, elevator pitch, a mini hall. Think of this hall as a mini me version of the larger vision. So people will get to see, go by the lemonade stand. You know, 40% of all baby boomers had a lemonade stand in some form or fashion growing up. And really that is the first sort of entrepreneurial universal experience that people have and still do have to this day and that we trace from that lemonade stand to the garage to the basement and how startups happen and we’re working hopefully to form a deal with, we’re talking to NASDAQ right now about them becoming a sponsor and a partner with us, really interesting people there and organization and how when you’re successful and you go public you’re on the NASDAQ stock exchange and we tell that story and that journey throughout that process on the mall. And then to the second part of your question about what do you want the takeaway to be. We want the takeaway at the temporary exhibit, the traveling exhibit to be the same as with the permanent exhibit. Someone walks out after having the experience, we want them to look at the world around them completely different and kind of go, oh my God, I had no idea how the world really worked, how all these amazing things that are in my life, my clothing, my purse, shoes I wear that are so comfortable, instead of, you know for many years, I have a triple E foot and I spent most of my life with shoes that were too small. Today, there’s all kinds of options for a wide-footed person because the market has responded in a way that it never used to. And everything that’s in our life that creates fulfillment and you know human flourishing is not about the things in your life, the things in your life free you to pursue the psychic aspects of human flourishing and entrepreneurs are the root of that. We want people to understand that when they walk out.

Peter Lipsett: So let’s go into the future. I mean, the goal is to eventually build something and it’s going to have a pretty big footprint. Big thing. You really have big vision for it. I know you’re still figuring out what city to put this in. There’s a number of contenders unless you want to break news on this podcast here. But what can we expect when that really comes into play? We talked, you know, this journey, et cetera, and some of the rides and things, but you’re thinking even bigger than that. I mean, what I’ve seen, you’ve got a school and townhomes and hotels and convention space. This is not just a day at the park, it’s an experience.

John Tillman: Now we’re modeling the entire grand vision on modern sports franchise ownership. There’s a great article in the Wall Street Journal from July of last year on Battery Park, which is the Atlanta Braves development that they started developing.

Peter Lipsett: I know it well. Go Braves.

John Tillman: Well, okay. Yeah, go Braves. There you go. You’re a Braves fan. So you’ve probably been there. I’m going to go visit there this summer. But modern sports franchise ownership is that you have the franchise team itself, whether it’s an NBA team or a football team or a baseball team, et cetera. That’s the anchor tenant if you will, of a larger economic development. And the reason this evolved in sports management is because you have to do revenue share on the franchise itself with the league. But all the economic interest around it that you begin to control, you obviously control that 100% as the owner of that area and that team. And so that’s the analog. We’re going to have the Hall of Giants is the analog to a sports franchise. I have a partner in the hotel business. He operates 39 hotels currently. Brands you’re familiar with, Hilton and Marriott and others. And he’s agreed to be our hotel and conference center partner as part of this development. I’m talking to several universities, including Hillsdale about them becoming a partner and building a campus nearby. Those are all in discussion at this point. Dr. Arnn has been kind enough to be on our board of advisors. We have a great board of advisors and still growing. Mike Kaiser, the founder of Bandon Dunes Golf Resorts and in my other entrepreneurial endeavors as our founding…

Peter Lipsett: And our Donors Trust board chair, Kim Dennis, if I’m not mistaken.

John Tillman: And I was just going to mention Kim, a great friend of both of us and a public policy entrepreneur herself from Philanthropy Roundtable to the Searle Freedom Trust and of course, DonorsTrust. Former Governor Doug Ducey is on the Board of Advisors. The great philanthropist and entrepreneur Chris Rufer from California, the tomato king of America, as I like to call him, is on the Board of Advisors. A great friend of mine, the retired chairman and CEO of Johnson & Johnson is not formally on the Board of Advisors because he serves on the boards of several public companies. So he’s informally helping us and we’re continuing to recruit. Amity Shlaes, Steve Moore, all on the Board of Advisors and we’re going to continue to add to that. But I think the key thing in terms of location, we’re looking at Florida, both Miami and Orlando. Each of them have certain advantages and disadvantages. We’re looking at Atlanta, Nashville and Dallas-Fort Worth. The two drivers, three drivers rather, of where we’re going to locate it are donor interest, somebody who wants to write a very, very large naming rights check to have it, you know, there’s the Field Museum, there’s the Griffin Museum of Science and Industry, and the Adler Planetarium, and we want to put a name in front of the Hall of Giants of somebody that sees the vision of this and the importance of it. And there’ll be all kinds of other naming opportunities, both for the temporary exhibit that’s going to be on the National Mall, as well as the permanent facility. So donor interest in terms of location. Secondly, we want to be in a location where we can make sure we can reach a huge portion of the American population and our particular target audience, which is families with children is our primary audience. We want to reach families with children, very much the Orlando model, if you will, that’s the most obvious one. And then lastly, where we can really see it have economic success. We want to be in a place where there’s growth, opportunity and a comfortable political environment. We went through a lot of discussion about should it be in a blue state? They’re the ones who need it the most. Or should it be in a red state where it’s going to operate in a safe space? So those are some of the factors going into it. I did have a great meeting with Governor DeSantis a few weeks ago. He was wonderful and has put us in touch with his Commerce Secretary, who’s also been amazingly wonderful and connecting us to all kinds of people in Florida. And so I’d say Florida’s ahead of the game, partly because they’ve been amazing and haven’t asked us for anything. The great thing about Illinois versus Florida, when you go to Illinois and you want to build a business, they think about what they can take from you, which is why the Bears are now looking at Indiana. Whereas when you come to Florida, they don’t ask you for anything, they just say, how can we help you? It’s really interesting and that’s, I think, been very appealing to us. But we haven’t made a final decision yet.

Peter Lipsett: You know, you touched on that, that difference between Chicago and Florida and the business climate. Talk to us about how, is there some element of telling that story of what the government does and can do and shouldn’t do to allow for business innovation as a part of this?

John Tillman: Now, that is going to be a huge part of what we talk about in the Hall of Giants. There’ll be a whole hall dedicated to entrepreneurship and government and the intersection points, regulation, taxation, and attitude. I’m often, you know, a little sidebar on the question, but I’m often asked what makes Illinois different than other places. What I just told you as an example, in fact, I’m thinking of actually going to the city fathers and the state government in Illinois and pitching them on the idea of the Hall of Giants being located in Chicago just to have the experience of seeing what they try to extract from us so I can tell that story. So anybody that’s watching now please don’t post that on your social media stuff because I want to go do that. I think I’ll report back to you what happens. But you know, again, another quick sidebar on the difference is I was on a plane once with this guy who, a Latino guy who started out as a laborer and eventually built a very large construction company, a classic American entrepreneur story, great guy in Illinois and started building large facilities for ComEd, Commonwealth Edison in Illinois. And then he started expanding and he goes to Maryland and he’s going to sign a contract with the big utility in Maryland. And near the end of that process, he says to the senior management of this utility in Maryland, when do we go meet with the speaker of the House and the Senate president? They looked at him like he had a hole in his head. They said, what are you talking about? He goes, well, no, we got to go bend the knee to the politicians. No, not here. You don’t have to do that. Even in Maryland, Blue Maryland, not like Illinois, we have to bend the knee. So where we’re going to be is we don’t want to bend the knee. We like the idea of how can we help you.

Peter Lipsett: Even in Maryland.

I like that. I think that’s such a great story to tell. And, I mean, you’ve been in the policy world for a long time. You think about these things that obviously is influenced by that background. I imagine. Are there other things from your policy background that are influencing how you’re telling these stories or just approaching this project in general?

John Tillman: One of the things that shocked me when I got involved in public policy after being an entrepreneur most of my life and still an entrepreneur to this day, obviously, was how entitled the political class is to the productive work of citizens. They really see it as their money and they really see citizens as tax revenue creating organisms to be harvested. Now that sounds a little harsh, but it really is true. And we have to fight back on that. They don’t have any kind of moral or legal right to the labor of us as individuals despite the 16th Amendment. One of my ideas that I’ll eventually get around to pursuing is trying to repeal the 16th Amendment, which if you think building a Hall of Giants is audacious, think about that one. But remember, what I always like to remind people of when I talk about the 16th Amendment, it was audacious to pass it. And that didn’t stop the people who wanted to enslave just a part of our labor through taxing labor. And so we should have the same audacity to repeal it. And we should have the audacity to build the Hall of Giants to celebrate great American entrepreneurship and the private enterprise that is the root source of all funding for government and philanthropy. You know, you’re in the philanthropic world and your philanthropic world is all funded by the government. And I think one of the most amazing things is people have lost sight of the fact that the root source of all dollars spent in the government sector and all dollars spent in philanthropic sector starts when an entrepreneur decides to take the risk to grow a business, to start a business, hire people with that singular purpose I mentioned earlier, which is you serve other people well. And there’s bad actors in the private sector, just as there is in the government sector and legal and medical. But on average, you’re rewarded and held accountable in the purest way possible in our system. And that has to be revered once again. My long range vision is to build an American consensus that once existed in this country, that free enterprise and capitalism are noble, that the founding of this country is noble, and those people who start and grow businesses to serve other people well and give people meaningful employment are noble. And that is how we’ll know we’re making progress. And so for all the people thinking about this, the audacity of this idea, all great endeavors that we take for granted today, whether it’s your prime delivery from Amazon that comes at four o’clock in the afternoon when you remember to order at nine o’clock in the morning, that was an audacious idea when Bezos started that. And all great projects start with people who are watching right now who decide, you know what, I’m going to get up and dance with that crazy man Tillman and help build the Hall of Giants.

Peter Lipsett: Now, so this is maybe a harder question, but you know, you talk about looking for dollars. Obviously, the people who have dollars are the same people kind of being honored by this museum. Do you worry about or guard against any kind of undue influence? You know, nobody wants to feel that their story is being told a little extra sweet because they happen to give $10 million to you. But how do you guard against that? How do you protect against that?

John Tillman: Well, first of all, by transparency in terms of our approach. So there’s three categories of people that will be recognized in the Hall of Giants. There’s people who are nominated, and we’re going to have a very transparent and open public nominating process. Anybody in the country, anybody in the world can nominate somebody and put their name in the pot. We will have an independent commission that evaluates the nominations and decides who should be put forward for serious consideration. And then those nominations each year will go and we’re working on the process of this right now looking at how other halls of fame do it. And there’ll be an independent body from the nominating commission that then makes decisions each year as to who should be elected to the Hall of Fame, the Hall of Giants. So there are those people and they are in a separate category independent from their financial contributions. There will also be people who are recognized as honorees in the Hall of Giants and these are definitely people that will be recognized for their economic contributions and their philanthropy not just to the Hall of Giants but to others in a very transparent way. And so whether or not they ever, so some of the honorees may get elected into the hall. Other honorees will simply be recognized for their philanthropy, not only to the Hall of Giants, but to the cause of liberty and free enterprise more broadly. And so we’re just going to do it head on like that. There’s a reason it’s called the Griffin Museum of Science and Industry and there’s a reason it’s called the Shedd Aquarium. Those people put money into the pot. But that shouldn’t get somebody inducted and we’re going to separate that and have a firewall between those two processes.

Peter Lipsett: Yeah, no, that makes sense. Yeah, I try to think of what are the reasons somebody would be against this and setting aside your Bernie Sanders types that are just purebred socialists and don’t think business have a right to exist in the first place. They’re obviously against it, but that’s it. But this kind of influence thing would be the one thing I could really pick up. So is there any other, is there opposition? What would people be opposed to here?

John Tillman: I had a call recently with somebody, very prominent philanthropist of the left, whose name I won’t share. We got a proposal in front of this person. And one of the criticisms we got was that our language and the way we talk about this is very ideological. And I went back and looked at our language and some of the material that they’d received. And that was fair criticism, actually. I thought, and even today I’m talking about it in somewhat ideological terms, but I think what’s interesting is that the idea of being completely all in on entrepreneurship, free enterprise and capitalism is perceived as ideological today. When 30 years ago during the Clinton administration, there was universal consensus between Democrats and Republicans that our systems were virtuous and noble. Nobody was anti-capitalist to speak of, it was fringe to think anything that was anti-capitalist then or anti-free enterprise. They weren’t owned by the Democrats or the Republicans. These ideas that we’re talking about here. And part of what I want to do is really create a reunification across the political spectrum on the virtue of it and that all sides like it. And that goes directly against the socialists. There’s no getting around that. The people who are socialists and are anti-capitalist and frankly anti-Western and anti the Western canon, we can’t avoid that because we are pro the Western canon and pro West and all that that means in terms of what liberty and freedom really are. But the fact that this has become somewhat ideological has been really surprising. And so that we do get that criticism. We’re trying to recruit people that are pro-free market from the left. It proves to be challenging and we’re still working on it.

Peter Lipsett: Yeah, as you were talking, I was like, well, back in the Clinton era, Bill Clinton’s speeches were very pro-capitalist and before that too. It is interesting how the shift took place. The Overton window left those people behind. It didn’t become ideological. It’s really good. So what is the ask of donors? We’ve touched on this a little bit, but for folks listening who are philanthropic, I mean, 350 million is a very big ask. Even seven and a half million for…

John Tillman: Yes.

Peter Lipsett: The exhibit on the mall is a pretty good size ask. Somebody who has $100, $1,000, $1 million, they’re all listening, how can donors get involved here?

John Tillman: Every dollar counts and whether someone has the capacity to write a hundred dollar check or a thousand dollar check or far more than that, we are grateful for any engagement, but obviously at this stage with the urgency we have, we’re looking for six and seven figure donors who are willing to make a very significant commitment to this effort. It doesn’t take a whole lot of them to add up to seven and a half or another six and a half million dollars. We have several proposals out for naming rights on the traveling pavilion exhibit, which is a five million dollar number. We have other naming opportunities and by the way, anybody that helps out at this early stage, they not only get a naming opportunity from anywhere from a quarter million dollars to five million dollars with the traveling exhibit, that will also carry over into the permanent facility and those naming rights and customized engagement for an exhibit there that meets their interest and needs and matches ours will carry over. So if you invest in the traveling exhibit, the seven and a half million dollars, not only do we get a benefit there and it’s traveling for the next several years but also in the permanent facility and it would be customized for an individual. The best way for somebody to get involved, I’ve checked out the website HallofGiants.org. Obviously most people know how to reach me by just going to the public way, but my email address is JT@HallofGiants.org. But the person that’s best to reach out to who is much more deeper in detail and focused than I am, is Ana, Ana@HallofGiants.org. Ana Friend, who’s a very bright young woman who’s done a fantastic job for us. Ana at HallofGiants.org can take somebody through the path. We’re happy to have an individual discussion, a Zoom call with someone and walk them through some of the details and get really granular with it. We’d love to see, we’d love to have those conversations.

Peter Lipsett: So kind of as a wrapping up question, I mean, 10 years from now, hopefully 15 years from now, there will be a building somewhere likely in the Southeast that will represent the culmination of all of this. What do you hope the impact is?

John Tillman: I want to rebuild an American consensus once again on the virtue and nobility of entrepreneurs who decide to start and grow a business to serve other people well. I want to create a reverence and respect for entrepreneurs. Everybody loves the entrepreneur when they’re mortgaged to the hilt, wondering if they’re going to make their next payment. That’s the heroic story. They’re in their garage struggling. People love the struggle story. But we should revere and respect entrepreneurs who are rising, and we should revere and respect entrepreneurs who are falling and may have failed. We will develop a hall of failure. Failure is a big part of the entrepreneurial journey, which I’ve experienced myself. It’s not fun, but boy, you do learn good and hard on how to try to improve and be better. And those are all the stories. That’s really the story of America. I mean, the founding of America was an entrepreneurial event, the greatest entrepreneurial thing that ever happened in the history of the world. And it takes people with bold vision to understand that now is the time more than ever. The other side is on the march. They have a grand strategic plan. They are well funded and they want to destroy the essence of our founding and the idea of our free enterprise system, the entrepreneurial role within it. They are out to destroy that. And so it is time for people to rise to the challenge and do something different and compete in a different way. And this is definitely going to compete in a different way. We’re going to compete for mindshare in culture through entertainment and education in a way that’s not been done yet.

Peter Lipsett: It’s awesome. I love big thinking. I love big ideas. This is definitely a very big one, but one, like I said, that there’s a gap. It’s sorely needed. And I can think of few better people to take this on than you, John Tillman. So thank you for doing it. Thank you for fighting this fight. And really excited to see this on the mall this summer and ultimately walk the halls of the museum.

John Tillman: And thank you so much for having me on and giving me this opportunity, Peter. I’m grateful.

Peter Lipsett: Well, if it wasn’t obvious while we were talking, I love this idea of this Hall of Giants. I am really enthused about it. I think John Tillman is a great social entrepreneur and I know he will be leading this effort very well, along with the others involved in it. And it’s just big. It’s neat. And you know what? It’s getting us on the offense. So often the ideas of free markets and liberty are on the defensive, they’re on the back foot, they’re being beat up. This is our opportunity, one of many, but an important big visual one to take these ideas and put them in front of people in a positive way. Tell the story of why we believe the things that we believe. I think that’s very cool. I think there’s so much we should be proud of and this museum is going to show it. So I’m already making plans to take my girls to see the exhibit on the mall this summer and can’t wait to do that. And I hope I can score a ticket to the ribbon cutting when the actual building eventually gets built.

And you probably have your own big ideas, big dreams of things that you want to do with your philanthropy. The great news is there are other social entrepreneurs just like John out there doing cool stuff, probably doing something in the wheelhouse that you care about. You don’t have to solve the problem yourself. You can use your charitable dollars to move that needle. And we at DonorsTrust work with philanthropists to make those connections to those social entrepreneurs and help them find the ways to really make their dollars explode in positive impact. It’s one of the best parts of the job that we get to do. We would love to be helpful to you if we are not already helping you already. And you can learn more at DonorsTrust.org. I encourage you to do that. Reach out to us there through the website or email me. TellMeMore@DonorsTrust.org. And would love to be a partner with you in your philanthropy as you work to make the world a better place and tell this positive story of our values.

Well, that’s it for this episode. We’re going to be back very soon in two weeks with another exciting conversation. Until then, thank you for being a giver. We’ll talk more soon.